Kage Naruto (Pilot Chapter)
by Drake Darkduke
Summary: 'Kage'. Shadow. Also, apparently, leader. Thus, to become a leader one must know Shadow Jutsu. Right? Sure. Because the logic of child without adult supervision is a powerful thing.


A small orange blur was speeding through the streets of Konoha, followed by a large and angry crowd. It should be noted that when a 4 year old can outrun a crowd of adults, either the adults are extremely slow, or, as is the case here, the child has been chased so many times he has started to become faster than your average civilian. He was not faster than a genin, but then again he was not even 5 yet…

The child in question is none other than Naruto Uzumaki, container of the nine-tailed fox Kyuubi no Kitsune, the biggest and most powerful of the Bijuu, which coincidentally is also the reason why he was followed on this particular occasion.  
As he rounded a corner Naruto crashed into one of the village's ninja, a chunin based on his flak jacket, with brown hair tied into a spiky ponytail and a scar on the bridge of his nose. He fell into a heap under Naruto.

"Hey! Watch where you are going, you could have…" The man trailed off as he saw WHO had crashed into him. At first he thought about shouting at him, after all it was the demon brat, but when he looked at Naruto's scared look, darting all around as if something were to jump at him at any time, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He was reminded too much of himself to do so.  
"I'm sorry! I gottago! Sorry again!" With that Naruto sped away, vowing to meet again with the only person other than Jiji and the Ichirakus that didn't seem to hate him.  
As the child ran away, Iruka was surprised then saddened to see the large crowd chasing after Naruto.  
XxX  
Naruto had asked Jiji, known to the rest of the world as the Sandaime Hokage, leader of Konohagakure; about the chunin with the brown pineapple on his head and scar on his nose.  
At this the Sandaime chuckled at the description given to him by Naruto. "Umino Iruka, he's a sensei at the academy, you'll probably see him in 2 years' time, when you go to the academy yourself."  
"He works at the academy? So he's like, very smart?" Naruto wondered.

"Yes, he is quite smart, he's a sensei after all." The Sandaime could only smile at the glint in the eyes of Naruto when he heard this.

"Then I'll go to the academy today! So I'll show him how smart I am!" Naruto lifted his fist in the air, a serious look on his face."

"Naruto, you cannot go to the academy yet, you're too young." Naruto's mood fell at this, though he immediately bounced back a smile on his face.

"Then I'll start to work now so when I arrive I'll be able to be the best student ever!"  
XxX  
You had to hand to Naruto, when he said he'd do something he did it in spades. Except, he hadn't the foggiest idea of WHAT the classes were about in the academy, which brought him to hiding in the class of the teacher with a scar on his nose that didn't immediately hate him ( just in case he got caught, he didn't want to be beaten).

Iruka coughed a little to grab his class' attention "Well, today we're going to learn about the leaders of every village. Does anyone know the title for Konoha's leader? Shikari?"

"Hokage, sensei." A young girl mumbled out.

"Correct! The leaders of the five great shinobi villages are all known as Kage: Hokage, Kazekage, Mizukage, Raikage and Tsuchikage."

Naruto droned out the rest of the class. THIS is what they did in the academy? Where were the cool Ninjutsu? Kunaijutsu? Hell, even Taijutsu was better than this!

'Well, if the academy won't make me stronger I'll do it on my own!' Thinking this, Naruto waited till the ring of the bell to slip out of the academy and run to the training grounds.

He started with the only training he could do without any information, strength training, running laps around the training ground and doing push-ups, sit-ups and jumping jacks.

Sometime later, Naruto was sprawled on the ground panting. Training was harder than it looked like! As he was thinking this he heard voices approaching and he tiredly stumbled behind some bushes, hoping that whoever it was wouldn't notice him. He really didn't want to explain what a civilian (Naruto sighed at this) was doing in a ninja training ground.

He watched as four people walked into the training ground, one had black hair up in a messy ponytail, a jounin jacket and the laziest expression he had ever seen. The other three were decidedly smaller, one had bluish-purple hair, an annoyed expression and white pupil-less eyes. The other boy had black hair too, but he had red eyes with black... Dots? (Naruto couldn't tell exactly what they were from the distance) the fourth, and apparently only girl, was the least strange of the group with simple brown hair and eyes.

The Hyūga and the Uchiha (Naruto recognised the two families, they were all pricks to anyone they saw) were bickering, seemingly about which clan was the strongest.

"Uchiha are superior to all you peasants, Hyūga included. No Uchiha would ever lose to clans that are as lowly as yours Hyūga" The smaller black haired boy sneered.

"Be silent Uchiha! The Hyūga have advanced far more than your clan could ever dream about! Konoha has no need for a clan as weak as yours when they have us Hyūga!" Naruto barely managed to hold back his laughter as he saw the two 'superior' clan boys bicker like chickens.

"Oh yeah? You want to fight to prove it peasant?"

"As you wish pink eyes! I shall show you your inferiority!" With this both boys jumped to opposite sides of the field. At least, they tried to, since both found they couldn't move their bodies.

"How troublesome... Boys what did I tell you about fighting between team-members?"

"Not to sensei..." Both boys mumbled with their heads dropped.

"As punishment, you'll do another D-rank for the day" With that the man left, followed by three grumbling teens.

Naruto was puzzled by the jounin's methods. He saw that the two clan boys were trying to move and yet couldn't. How strong of an ability was that? Being able to prevent the enemy from moving must be the coolest ability ever! 'What kind of ability was it? I saw that the Jounin's shadow moved till it touched the boys' own, so it must involve shadows somehow. Shadow abilities? Weren't the leaders of hidden villages all called Kage (shadow)? Maybe that's how you become a strong ninja, by using shadows!' With this thought Naruto happily returned home.

For once, it was fortunate that Naruto had no one to ask questions to (There was the Hokage, but he was busy often) since any other child that had the idea of practicing 'Shadow Abilities' would be swiftly told that it was a Kekkei Genkai of the Nara clan and to leave it be. Which was, unknown to many, a false assumption circulated by the high chakra cost of shadow jutsu making it seem impossible for common ninja to use. The only thing the Nara clan had over others was their high chakra density, making jutsu outside shadow jutsu extremely inefficient, which is the reason they generally use "clan techniques" to fight. Naruto, having the Kyuubi sealed inside him, had no problem with the high chakra cost of the shadow jutsu, he had denser chakra than even Shikaku, the Nara clan head. This had as a consequence atrocious chakra control all but preventing him from learning any type of fine-tune jutsu.

XxX

Naruto woke up the next day with a plan. He was going to sneak into the library and find all the jutsu involving shadows. Then he'd show he didn't need to go to the academy to become a genin and the Hokage would have no other choice other than making him a genin, so he'd already start doing the cool things ninja did like saving princesses and fighting criminals!

XxX

Naruto did manage to sneak into the library (which was saying something seeing he was dressed in orange) but he just couldn't find anything about shadow abilities. Actually, he did learn that 'shadow abilities' were called kage jutsu and that there was a clan in konoha that specialised in them. The book did say it was a kekkei genkai the Nara possesed, but Naruto had no idea what that meant so he ignored it. Thus, Naruto decided a change of plans was in order. He'd sneak into the Nara clan's compound and he'd learn from watching them practice. 'I'm such a genius!' thought Naruto with a smirk.

XxX  
" SHIKAKU NARA!" Naruto jumped at hearing the shout. For a second he thought he'd been caught! He watched as a woman with dark brown hair and a bang on the right side of her face marched to a man with pinaeapple hair and two scars on the side of his face teaching shogi to a small child with the same hair. "Why are you playing shogi?! You told me you'd train Shikamaru! And do NOT tell me you're training by teaching him shogi!"

The now named Shikaku winced a bit at his wife's tone "I was just having a break dear, I'll start training him immediately"

"Thank you sweetie, I knew you'd understand" Naruto was amazed at the sudden change in the woman. She went from downright murderous to nice in an eyeblink! "I'll leave you boys to it then" With that she went back inside the house.

"Troublesome woman... *sigh* Well Shikamaru, let's start training shall we? Here do the hand signs with me..." Naruto just watched intently for the remainder of the time, trying to memorize all the handsigns and jutsu.

XxX

Two months had passed since the day Naruto sneaked into the Nara compound, and he could now perform several kage jutsu including Kageshibari no Jutsu and it's succesor Kagemane no Jutsu . He was actually really proud of the latter since he had quite a bit of trouble getting it to work. He still practiced his strength training daily, which now included basic Taijutsu in the form of repeatedly punching or kicking a tree stump. He still remembered that strange jounin with the green spandex, black bowl cut and the thickest eyebrows he'd ever seen. The man was strange but he took his training seriously! 5000 punches to a tree stump followed by another 5000 with the other hand followed by ANOTHER 5000 kicks... Naruto was tired after a meager 200 of each!

Still, Naruto had unknowingly advanced to the average genin's strength. He'd never be the rookie of the year in the academy, what with his terrible book smarts, but he could probably kick most other academy student's ass twice over in a fair fight ( and he still wasn't an academy student himself).

This day Naruto was walking towards his usual training ground when he saw a ninja with a strange headband. Instead of the leaf symbol with the swirl and arrowhead he saw a strange symbol with two long rounded bars, with one being on the top right of the other, connected by a thin strip and a smaller bar on the top left. It was strangely reminiscent of a cloud. He immediately ran to the Hokage's office to warn him of the infiltration.

XxX

"Naruto you can't enter now! Hokage-sama is in a reunion right now!" The Hokage's secretary didn't dislike him, which was why she had been chosen, but she was not going to let him disrupt the peace treaty with Kumo.

"I'm sorry Shizuka-san but it's really important!" With this comment Naruto barged in the office. "Jiji! There's a foreign ninja in the village! You have to..." He trailed off as he saw the same symbol on the headbands of the ninja in the office. "They're already here! Jiji I'll help you fight them!" Having said his piece Naruto tried to tackle one of the kumo ninja. Keyword tried. A 4 year old, no matter how strong, cannot hope to tackle a grown man down. Still, Naruto was not discouraged, and even while held up by the kumo ninja he rained down punches and kicks on him. They didn't really hurt the ninja though.

"Naruto..." Hiruzen Sarutobi just rubbed the bridge of his nose "The ninja you've just attacked are here to sign a peace treaty, not to invade..."

" Damn, kid's got balls at the very least" chuckled one of the kumo shinobi.

Naruto just stood there blinking at his Jiji. Peace treaty? What was a peace treaty? Confused he voiced his question. At least his Jiji didn't seem worried by their presence.

"A peace treaty is when two villages promise not to fight each other Naruto." The sandaime patiently explained. " This way we prevent more wars from happening"

" Oh." Naruto scratched his head as he looked at the kumo shinobi. "I'm sorry for attacking you. I thought you were here to hurt Jiji."

The shinobi just chuckled and told him that there was no damage done. With this Naruto left to return to his training ground

XxX

Naruto was spent. A whole day of training tends to do that. He chuckled as he thought back to the morning. He should have known they weren't there to hurt the village. If they were the konoha ninja would have stopped them.

He was just going to sleep in the training ground. It's not as if the orphanage beds were so much better than the grassy field he was in. Plus, there were no big kids to bully him here. Just as he was about to go to sleep under a tree he saw a man moving sneakily through the forest in the direction of the closest clan compound. Naruto had no idea who the man was or which clan's compound he was trying to sneak in, but he had heard Jiji talk about protecting the villagers so many times that he felt almost obligated to at least watch the man, if only to make sure he wasn't an enemy ninja.

As he saw the man jump over the compound's wall he instantly got wary. Only a ninja could hope to make such a jump. He wondered if he would be able to make it when he heard a shout from the compound and he saw the same man jump over the wall carrying something over the shoulder. Naruto knew he had to do something, this ninja was stealing from a Konoha clan! It was almost as bad as stealing from the Hokage!

Naruto tackled the figure, hoping to at least slow him down enough for an adult to stop him. Unknown to the blond, dense, blood-red chakra encased his form, increasing his strength and shocking the would-be robber long enough for his tackle to hit him. Slightly surprised that he had actually tackled the ninja, but chalking it off as a result of his super-amazing training, Naruto started shouting "I got him! Hey! I got the robber, come help me! I can't hold him for long!" The blond didn't notice the red chakra fade.

Almost immediately a man with long dark blue hair appeared, surveying the scene for just a moment before knocking the thief out. As he turned towards Naruto, he bowed his head and said " Thank you for your help Uzumaki-san. The Hyūga clan is in your debt." He then bent down to cut the ropes binding the ( Naruto did a double-take at this) small girl, taking off the gag too in the process.

"Is she ok?" Naruto asked

"Yes, my daughter Hinata is just shocked right now, but she is fine thanks to you." Hiashi said this without ever moving his gaze away from his daughter, who was crying. Naruto slowly got closer to the small crying girl till he was an arm length away.

"Hinata?" Naruto was not prepared for the girl to throw herself at him and hug him. This was the first time ever he was hugged and it felt...nice...

Hiashi just watched as his shy daughter hugged the small boy. 'Well... This'll be interesting'.

XxX

" So you were in a training ground, when you saw this man sneak into the Hyuuga compound. Then you saw him escape the compound carrying Hinata bound and gagged and you stopped him. Is this correct Naruto?" Sarutobi asked, all the time watching Naruto.

The Sandaime had been immediately called and the kidnapper apprehended. Then Naruto, along with Hiashi and his daughter who didn't want to be separated from her father, went to the Hokage's office where Sarutobi was waiting with the bound kidnapper, who was revealed to be a kumo nin. Naruto than explained what happened, prompting the Sandaime to ask his question.

"Yes it is Jiji."

"May I ask what you were doing in the training ground Naruto? Also, how were you able to stop the kidnapper, a jounin level shinobi?" Sarutobi's gaze never wavered as he observed Naruto scratch the back of his head, a sure hint to his nervousness.

"Well... You know how I told you I'd work to be the best student ever? Well I've been training since that day." Naruto sheepishly revealed. "As for how I was able to stop him..."

He never got to say anything more as the kumo shinobi sneered at the Hokage " Please. I already know he's a Jinchurikii, there's no need to hide that fact. Should have seen it immediately really, what with the way he's treated and all..."

Naruto watched as both the Hokage and Hiashi winced at this. Was he a Jinchurikii? Was that why everyone hated him? And, what was a Jinchurikii? Apparently he was't the only one to notice both men wincing. "Tou-san? W-what is a J-jinchuriki?"

The kumo shinobi was amazed. He saw the look of confusion on the demon-container's face. They didn't even tell him what he was? Maybe if he told him he could build mistrust between the container and the village leader. "A Jinchurikii is a container, a prison if you want, of..." he didn't get to end the phrase as he was knocked out again.

The Hokage was worried. He saw the confusion on the children's faces, he knew what was coming, yet he didn't know how to prevent it. If he didn't tell Naruto now the child would probably go around asking questions, and if he found out from anyone else he would lose all the boy's respect. Even just the fact that it was another person to reveal what he was might have lost him respect. The only action he could take... "Naruto-kun, while I would have preferred to tell you this another way, I'll tell you what a Jinchurikii is. Hiashi, even if I'd prefer for Hinata not to hear about this, I'll leave it up to you to decide."

"Hokage-sama, if you don't mind I'd prefer if my daughter could stay to hear this, seeing that she knows enough to connect the dots by herself. I'd like her to know the facts without any bias." Hiashi declared. Sarutobi understood what the Hyuuga clan head was saying. If she were to learn what a jinchurikii was from the biased villagers she could be a problem to Naruto attempts at friendship with other children.

"Fine. Naruto, Hinata, what I'm about to say is a village secret. It is strictly forbidden to repeat anything said here to anyone not present in the room. Do you understand?" At the nods of confirmation from both children he continued " Jinchurikii... Do you know what bijuu are?" two head shakes, no " Bijuu are nine large chakra constructs with independent minds. The Kyuubi no Kitsune, which attacked this village more than 4 years ago, is the strongest of the nine. They can't really be killed, being made of chakra, so to protect people from them we had to place them inside containers, usually small children" Sarutobi saw the colour drain from Naruto's face as he connected the dots. His age, the hate from the villagers, the whisker marks... He remembered all those comments they shouted at him, 'monster, demon, monster, freak, monster...'

He was the Kyuubi! No wonder everyone hated stood up, tears in his eyes as he turned to leave when a soft voice stopped him. " Y-you're not the K-kyuubi, Naruto-san. Y-you s-saved me. The K-kyuubi wouldn't h-have s-saved me...You are my friend." Naruto turned around to Hinata's lavender eyes shining with determination.

"Do you really mean it? Do you really think I'm not a monster?" The Hokage's heart broke when he heard the pain evident in the small boy's voice. He tried to hide it, but he knew that deep down Naruto was pained by the villager's hate.

"Naruto-san, everyone in this room knows you're not a monster, this I can assure you." Hiashi authoritative tone was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a softer reassuring one.

Naruto just stood there for a moment before hugging Hinata with tears of happiness " Thank you, Thank you so much... I... I just... Thank you" With that Naruto fell asleep,exhausted from everything that had happened, still hugging Hinata.

XxX

(2 years later)  
It was the first day of academy for both Naruto and Hinata, and as usual for the both of them they were walking towards the academy hand in hand. Hiashi had a small smile as he saw this. It was incredible how much Hinata had improved with the help of Naruto. Apparently simply being around Naruto was a confidence boost for his daughter, which he was grateful for.

Neji was slightly in front of them, leading the way, seeing as it would be his second year at the academy. Everyone said he was a genius, but he didn't let it go to his head, and was actually quite nice to be with in Naruto's opinion. Sure, he could be a bit annoying with his need to always protect Hinata after the attempted kidnapping. That was Naruto's job! She was his best friend and nothing would ever happen to her! He'd made a promise!

When they finally arrived at the academy they bid Neji goodbye as he left to join his class. They walked to their new classroom where they were met with the excited talking of their soon-to-be classmates. Their sensei hadn't arrived yet. Hinata wondered who their new sensei would be. Meanwhile, Naruto was looking around at his new classmates. He saw a kid with a duck butt in his hair, another with two red fang tattoos on his cheeks, a large kid with swirls on his cheeks munching on a packet of chips and talking to a black pineapple haired guy... Where had he seen that haircut before?

As Naruto was wondering this the door opened to let in two chunin, one of which he immediately recognised as Iruka, that scar was hard to miss, while the other had silver hair. " Good morning class. My name is Mizuki and this guy with me is Iruka. We are going to be your senseis until you become genin." Iruka just waved at the class. "Any questions?"

Seeing none Iruka started the class " Well class, today we're just going to know each other ok? Let's see... Aburame Shino?"

"Yes?" Everyone jumped at this. When did that guy enter the classroom? Naruto was even more surprised seeing that this guy was sitting next to him. How the hell did he not notice him?

Naruto ignored several names called after that one until "Uchiha Sasuke?"

'Ah, he's an Uchiha, yup, that would explain his expression'

XxX  
(Several months later)  
If it weren't for Hinata, Naruto would have probably simply dozed off. Why did students need to know all this useless information. Yeah, some of it, like what other villages there were and who their leader was, could be useful, but a lot of the lessons were useless. Why couldn't they train? Why couldn't they be taight some jutsu? He sighed, low enough not to be heard by the senseis. Maybe he shouldn't have promised to Hinata that he'd always listen in class. It was becoming really hard to mantain his promise.

"Well class, today you're going to start sparring." A loud cheer went through the class at this. Iruka waited for it to stop before continuing "This will be a tournament of sorts, with the initial matches being round-robin. Spars are taijutsu only until third year, so if anyone uses jutsu he or she is instantly disqualified. Understood?" A swarm of Hai Iruka-Senseimet his question.  
"Follow me then."

When they had arrived at the academy grounds the class immediately noticed a large red circle drawn on the ground. "That is the arena" explained Mizuki "exiting the arena will instantly mean a loss for you. Now, rules are simple: no jutsu other than taijutsu, everything else is allowed. The match ends either when I or Iruka-sensei say so, when one of the contestants forfeits, when one of the contestants is knocked out or at first blood. Continuing to fight after one of these happens is an instant disqualification and removal from the tournament for the year." Nods went around the class. Those were pretty straightforward rules.

"Very well, will Inuzuka Kiba and Uzumaki Naruto enter the arena" both boys excitedly jumped into the circle, happy to have been chosen first. "Are you both ready? Hajime!"

"Yeah! I'll beat you down blondie! Get ready to lose!" With that Kiba jumped at Naruto aiming for a high punch. Naruto ducked the punch and responded with one of his own aimed at the stomach. Kiba caught Naruto's arm, but was surprised at the strength behind the punch. "Heh, not bad blondie. I almost noticed that."

"Oh yeah? Notice this!" Naruto lashed out with a kick catching Kiba in the stomach. Taking advantage of Kiba's wince the blond caught the brunet's hands and unleashed a headbutt onto Kiba's nose, breaking it and achieving first blood.

"Shousa, Naruto" the blonde cheered before helping Kiba up. "Kiba, go to the infirmary to get a look at your nose."

"Hey Kiba" The boy looked at Naruto "Sorry for breaking your nose. It wasn't my intention" Kiba just chuckled at this and walked away again.

"Don't worry, It just means I'll have to break yours next time Blondie." Kiba snickered at Naruto's expression. "I just let you win this time"

"Oh yeah? Bring it on dog-breath I ain't afraid to kick your butt again! In fact..."

"Shousa, Sasuke!"

Naruto turned around at this. 'Damnit! I didn't even see what happened!'. He approached the arena to see the duck-butt boy exit it leaving a battered boy on the ground. 'Man, I wish I'd seen what he did to that guy, he looks like shit. Now, when's my turn again?'  
XxX  
(Two years later)  
That fight started a rivalry/friendship of sorts between Kiba and Naruto. When they sparred Naruto was noticeably faster and stronger, but lacking a taijutsu style he was at a disadvantage against Kiba's use of the Inuzuka clan's taijutsu style, the Inuken (though Naruto still found the name hilarious). This made matches between them quite contended.

Still, their fighting didn't prevent them from missing class to play pranks on villagers occasionally. They would happily do it more times, but Kiba's mom's anger was enough to keep Kiba in line. As for Naruto, Hinata just had to look at him with puppy dog eyes to break his resolve. Naruto guessed that if it weren't for his promise to her, he'd have missed class more often, consequently making his grades plummet. His grades weren't bad, but neither were they rookie of the year material.

Speaking of rookie of the year, Sasuke was strangely missing from class, Naruto noticed. This was strange since the Uchiha never missed class. 'I wonder if something happened to Sasuke?'. As he was thinking of what could have happened to Sasuke Iruka-sensei entered class, said " Due to unforeseen circumstances class has been cancelled for the rest of the week. We will have class again by next monday, now please go home and inform your parents"  
and left again.

Shouts of jubilation were heard around the class as several 8 year olds ran home chatting excitedly about the missed classes. Naruto and Hinata meanwhile were calming walking hand in hand, more worried about what had happened to force the academy to close than happy for missing classes. "Hinata," said Naruto "what do you think happened? What could have forced the academy to close?"

Hinata looked pensive for a moment before answering "W-well, Tou-san s-said that the a-academy closes only w-when there's an emergency in the v-village." Naruto immediately knew she was worried by the return of her stuttering. Hinata had gotten rid of it almost completely, but it still returned when she was worrried.

"Don't worry Hinata-chan! I'll protect you from anything! No matter what or who it is, It's a promise!" Hinata just blushed at this and squeezed his arm tighter in appreciation. Naruto suddenly stopped, forcing Hinata to stop too. "I know how we can discover what happened! Let's ask Jiji!" with that he started running, pulling a surprised Hinata along for the ride.  
XxX

The Sandaime Hokage was sitting at his desk rubbing his temples. He sighed again. Maybe he was too old for this job, maybe he should call one of his students back to replace him. Jiraiya was already in the village, maybe he could talk to him, either to replace him or to convince Tsunade. He opened his drawer to get his viewing ball when the door slammed open letting two children enter. He immediately recognized the blonde mop of hair.

"Jiji! Iruka-sensei said the academy closed, but he didn't say why, and me and Hinata were wondering if you knew why, cos you're the Hokage, and you should know everything and..." Hinata was even more surprised than the Hokage. They had been running all the way here, she was completely out of breath yet Naruto was seemingly unaffected.

" Calm down Naruto! And,yes as a matter of fact I do know what has happened." calmly explained Sarutobi. "Before I tell you though I want to inform you that this affects a classmate of yours, and I ask that you don't treat him any differently than you did before."

A classmate? Who could it... "It involves Sasuke, right Jiji?" The Hokage was surprised. Naruto was a lot smarter than he let on. Meanwhile Hinata also connected the dots, she too had noticed the Uchiha heir missing from class.

" Yes, it does. Yesterday evening his brother Itachi killed every Uchiha apart from Sasuke and their mother Mikoto. Unfortunately, Sasuke was placed under a genjutsu to torture him, and is still in the hospital. Mikoto... we are not sure if it was intentional or not, but Itachi missed her heart and hit a lung instead. She too is in the hospital, but the doctors managed to save her." Hiruzen saw the expression on the small children. Naruto's eyes dulled as he looked at the ground, while Hinata' became teary. "They'll need to rest, but I'm sure you could visit Sasuke tomorrow."

Naruto nodded and left the room, followed closely by Hinata. "Naruto-kun..." She almost broke down then as his dull and lifeless gaze settled on her. She knew that Naruto and Sasuke were not exactly close friends, but Naruto still considered him a friend. He knew how much it hurt not having a family, he learned how much it hurt to lose family after Hinata's mother, the closest person to a mother figure he ever had, died giving birth to Hanabi. He was probably remembering that event. Knowing this Hinata pulled Naruto into a hug. "Naruto-kun, we'll be there for him. You know we will."

Naruto sighed, lifted his gaze to look into Hinata's eyes and mumbled " I know, it's just..."

" You're remembering my kaa-san." Naruto nodded at this. " You're remembering how much I cried, how bad I felt." another nod "What you're not remembering is how you stood there by my side, hugging me and telling me it would be alright, urging me to live on. That is what we're going to do tomorrow with Sasuke, ok?"

A small smile appeared on his face, a bit of the mischievous spark that Hinata loved so much appeared in his eyes. "Ok Hinata, but I'm not hugging him." Hinata giggled a little at this. Now she recognized him.


End file.
